Rabat – Former football executives Joseph Blatter and Michel Platini, who headed FIFA and UEFA respectively, will be facing trial on Wednesday over charges of fraud, document forgery, misappropriation, and criminal mismanagement.
The trial will be held at Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona, following an investigation that started all the way back in 2015.
The two are accused of fraud and document forgery. Blatter has been charged with misappropriation and criminal mismanagement, with Platini being cited as having participated in the offenses.
The judges are expected to deliver their verdict on July 8, and the pair could face up to five years in prison or a fine.
The charges are related to a payment of over 2 million dollars to Platini back in 2011, to the detriment of FIFA, in addition to hundreds of thousands in fraudulent social security payments made out to Platini.
Platini “submitted to FIFA in 2011 an allegedly fictitious invoice for a debt still existing for his activity as an adviser for FIFA in the years 1998 to 2002,” the court said.
When Blatter’s tenure as the head of football’s global governing body was brought to an end in 2015 following a fraud investigation that shook the entire association, Platini seemed like the frontrunner to replace him.
However, his involvement in corruption with FIFA was revealed soon afterwards, torpedoing his career as an executive.
While the court says the payments to Platini were made with no legal basis, the pair insist that they had an oral contract to pay the amount, maintaining their innocence.
FIFA is the world’s leading governing body on football, but the organization has long been accused of systemic corruption, which boiled over in 2015 after several arrests were made following a fraud investigation.
